


It's The Thought That Counts

by oceaxe



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Baby's in this one, Birthday Presents, Canon Compliant, Don't get the back seat dirty boys, First Time, Gift Giving, I wrote Sam POV!, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:07:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23695939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceaxe/pseuds/oceaxe
Summary: It’s Dean’s birthday and while angels have no birthdays, Castiel has a) been around human cultures for long enough to be aware of the nearly universal customs of celebrating the anniversary of a loved one’s birth and b) has been living with humans for long enough that he’s been included in some of those celebrations. But the art of gift-giving continues to elude his comprehension.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 16
Kudos: 93





	It's The Thought That Counts

**Author's Note:**

> This is a birthday present for my friend James, who prompted "Cas giving Dean strange/inappropriate birthday present & Dean trying to figure out how to accept & finding he loves it, really." 
> 
> I suspect that this gift fic actually fits the first part of that prompt, and I hope that you end up loving it, really.
> 
> Many thanks to Fiamac for the beta and the art!!!

Human needs are complicated, and human rituals even more so. Now that Dean and Sam have finally gone for a long-promised beer run, Castiel is free to pace the library floor, mulling over his conundrum.

It’s Dean’s birthday and while angels have no birthdays, Castiel has a) been around human cultures for long enough to be aware of the nearly universal customs of celebrating the anniversary of a loved one’s birth and b) has been living with humans for long enough that he’s been included in some of those celebrations. But the art of gift-giving continues to elude his comprehension.

He remembers fondly the cake (large and flat and tasting of glucose and inorganic chemicals) Dean, Sam and Jack had presented him on the occasion of Agent Beyonce’s invented birthdate. They had decided he would have been born in August, under the sign of Leo. Fitting if not accurate, as Castiel had been formed before Regulus, Al Jabbah, and Algieba had coalesced into stars. 

(And of course, there had been Claire and Grumpy Cat and her reluctant but real gratitude. However, that experience at the Hot Topical is not one that he cares to repeat. Not even for Dean.)

A simple sheet cake won't do, he decides, the memory of Dean eating only the frosting and declining the spongy innards with a grimace still fresh in his mind. Nothing purchased in haste and confusion at a place of commerce. No, only something that is fulfilling on all levels, welcome in every way, will suffice. 

But what? 

Castiel thinks of all he knows of Dean, which is not an inconsiderable amount. He thinks of all the things that Dean loves, and the things he needs but does not have. A few ideas present themselves, but he shakes his head. 

This is not a time for declarations, he thinks. It cannot be too forward, too sincere. That would ruin Dean’s enjoyment, and enjoyment is the point. There cannot be lessons or messages. A gift with strings attached is no gift at all.

Castiel opens his laptop for some “online shopping.” He first makes a list of the things he knows always bring a smile to Dean’s face. 

Baby, of course. The Impala is a never-failing source of delight and satisfaction. He seems to enjoy everything about his car, from driving her to showing her off to meticulously maintaining and detailing her. But Castiel knows that Dean likes Baby just as she is; she’s in factory-perfect condition already, and Dean’s a purist. No car accessories for Baby.

Dean enjoys food quite a bit, but Castiel is even more at a loss here than with car parts. His few attempts at cooking in the bunker’s kitchen have variously met with rebuff, reproach, and once with the fire extinguisher. And Dean is able to access his favorite meals at restaurants when they’re on the road, which is most of the time. That isn’t special enough. 

There’s his enthusiasm for cowboys and all-things-Western, Castiel remembers, and then his fingers are typing a search which leads to ten gallon hats and chaps with no derrier, which he finds amusing but ultimately not fertile enough ground for a gift idea. (He bookmarks the page for future reference, just in case.)

He contemplates trying to purchase music for Dean (pointless, since he only listens to songs he already knows), then wonders if Dean needs new boots or clothes (he doesn’t, Sam had replenished their depleted wardrobes a few months ago). His thoughts circle uselessly for a while, overwhelmed with the difficulty of gift-giving. Castiel’s urge to provide Dean with gratification is proving to be difficult to sate properly.

It occurs to him that he might require a few clothing items himself; as his grace gradually depletes, he finds that he has to shower occasionally, and his undergarments have required washing for the first time since his initial adventure in being human came to an end. It’s as he is perusing the really quite extensive underwear options for male humans that he catches sight of some shorts. 

They’re short shorts, not quite like the ones Dean usually wears to wash Baby, but a similar length. Castiel’s back straightens and his lips form an “o” as he remembers that the Bunker’s ancient laundry machine “ate” those shorts and Dean has been grousing about their loss ever since. 

He claims that he can’t get her properly clean in regular jeans, as they just don’t allow the flexibility and reach that well-worn and truncated denim provide, and he refuses to prematurely crop a pair of his current rotation of jeans because “they have to be worn just right before you chop them off, everybody knows that!”

Castiel clicks on the link. 

Several minutes later, he’s beaming with pride that his online excursion has been so successful. He can’t wait to see Dean’s face when he opens his present. 

  
  
  


\---

Sam didn’t sign up for this. He in no way signed up for any of this. He keeps records. He would know. He’d have a receipt, or an invoice, or a membership card. He has none of those things.

What he has instead is a very difficult time keeping a straight face as Dean pulls what appears to be fetish-wear out of a plain brown paper-wrapped package. A package handed to him, with hopeful eagerness, by Cas. 

Dean is making no effort to keep a straight face; his expression telegraphs shock, dismay and also a certain degree of anticipatory anger, which will blossom imminently into actual anger if he determines that this is a joke at his expense. He holds them up, tiny and shiny black booty shorts, and looks up at Cas, who doesn’t seem to register the danger he’s in. 

“Turn them around,” Cas says, his voice uncharacteristically high in his utterly sincere excitement.

[ The word “B A B Y” is emblazoned across the ass in silver 150pt font letters. ](https://oceaxe-ifdawn.tumblr.com/post/615622280036417536/just-just-think-about-dean-washing-baby-in-those)

Sam’s lips twitch spasmodically, but he manages to stifle a guffaw.

Dean’s face abruptly goes crimson and he stuffs them back in the box before lurching out of his seat. “Gotta hit the can,” he mutters as he leaves, and Cas’ face falls. 

“That did not go as well I was hoping,” he says, his voice back in its well-traveled gravel ruts.

“What were you hoping for?” Sam asks, almost afraid of the answer. 

“I just thought he’d like special shorts for bathing-”  
  
Sam can’t help it, the laughter escapes in a gust that will not be stopped. “ _Bathing_? First of all, Cas, no one wears shorts in the shower, man, this is the 21st century. Second of all, those look more like--” 

“For bathing _Baby_ ,” Cas interrupts with a totally unnecessary eye-roll. As if that was obvious. “That’s why they said ‘Baby.’” 

The problem for Sam at this juncture is that Cas looks so sincere, so downtrodden, his hopes so unfairly dashed. “You got him shorts to wash Baby in?” he asks slowly and softly, just to clarify. It’s still confusing, but a little less totally inexplicable than Cas giving Dean sleazy boy-toy lingerie.

Cas nods. “The washing machine destroyed his jean shorts. He’s been complaining for weeks. I just thought…”  
  
Sam pats his shoulder and shakes his head. “I get it, yeah. That was really thoughtful. That’s a good gift for Dean. Maybe he was just overcome by emotion.” 

Sam mentally edits out which emotion Deanhe was probably overcome by, because explaining the depths to which his brother Dean has repressed his sexuality is a conversation he’s not prepared for right now. 

“If you say so,” Cas says doubtfully. Sam gives him a reassuring clap on the back and heads back to his room, barely even feeling bad about it. He would stay and help Cas deal with his disappointment, but frankly he doesn’t feel that he gets paid enough to walk an angel through the history of homophobia in American society. Besides, he’s Dean’s best friend, not Sam’s. If anyone’s earned the honors for that conversation, it’s his closeted bisexual disaster of an older brother. 

  
  
\---  
  
  


Dean leans against his door and looks down into his hands, which are clutching Cas’ birthday present. He can’t bring himself to look at them again. He can’t understand why Cas would give him these.... These _stripper shorts_ ; panties really. Panties for men. Panties for… him. 

They are awfully silky between his fingers. Slippery and slinky. The material is very soft.

Why would Cas…? His brain refuses to come up with an explanation that makes any sense. Sam must have put him up to it, he thinks, but that doesn’t ring true. Sam had looked mortified, if anything. He tosses them on his bed with an exasperated sigh.

The real problem here, of course, is that Dean wants this to mean something that it doesn’t, that it can’t. Cas is just kinda clueless, not giving Dean signals. That much was obvious by the look on his face; nearly puppyish in his desire to please.

But not necessarily in the way that Dean wants to be pleased. He frowns, scrubs his hand over his face. 

They’re still nice, he thinks. They’d probably be comfortable; they have a cute little pouch in the front to cradle his junk, and they look just long enough not to creep up his crack. The thought of putting them on tugs at his mind, causes his fingers to twitch towards them. He nearly drops trou then and there, but there’s a knock on his door. 

Fuck.

“Yeah?” He yells, not knowing if he wants it to be Cas or not. 

“Dean?” Cas asks, as if he hadn’t heard the yell. Dean hangs his head and sighs. 

“Yeah?” he says again, heart pounding for no reason.

“I just… the gift. Was it… are you okay?”

“‘M fine, Cas. They’re great. Just… just trying them on. Thank you,” he forces himself to say. 

“Oh good,” Cas replies, not sounding particularly mollified but at least sounding like he isn’t going to press the issue. “I’m glad.” He also doesn’t sound glad, but Dean will make it up to him later. Somehow. 

“See you in the morning,” he says, like a coward.

“Yes,” Cas returns, the sound of his feet shuffling off down the hall to his own room receding quickly. 

Dean turns away from the door, back to his bed and the sleazy, skeevy, adorable little scrap of fabric lying there. One question reverberates through his mind. 

_Why the hell do they say Baby on the ass?_

It’s only as he strips down for bed, tossing his shirt and jeans towards the hamper that the penny drops with a loud, almost judgmental clink. His shorts, his favorite shorts, his Baby-washing shorts. They’re at the bottom of the hamper, although with the crotch ripped they can never be worn again.

Cas got him new Baby-washing shorts. 

_Sexy_ Baby-washing shorts.

He grins.

\---

  
  


Castiel’s coming up from the Bunker’s storage when he hears music drifting towards him from the garage. He puts down the box of disintegrating religious artifacts and makes his way towards the door, the sounds of water splashing becoming clear as he gets closer.

His heart rate increases, which is still an unusual sensation for him. He notices his breath is coming fast in his chest as well, and it feels as though blood is rushing towards his face. 

Before he can consciously register what his body is doing, his left hand has grasped the door handle and turned and pushed-- and the sight of Dean causes all these physiological reactions to double in intensity. 

He’s wearing them. He’s wearing them! Castiel’s relief rushes through him in a warm, rising tide. Dean is wearing the shorts and he’s washing Baby, and he looks so happy that Castiel is transfixed. He’s frozen to the spot, mesmerized by the look on Dean’s face, by the way his hips sway back and forth to the music, by the shine of the shorts as they cling to Dean’s… 

Castiel becomes aware of another physiological response, one which is not totally unfamiliar but certainly not appropriate in this scenario. An involuntary noise escapes his throat as he pulls back from the doorway and Dean’s head turns towards the sound. He smiles, and it’s now that Castiel realizes that he is wearing no shirt, nothing but the gift Castiel gave to him and the freckles that Chuck saw fit to bestow upon him. 

It becomes abruptly clear why Castiel had felt so strongly that these shorts, these in particular, would suit Dean. Why Dean had to have them. Why Castiel wanted Dean to have them. Why his body hummed and buzzed with pleasure as he entered in the card number, the PO Box, clicked “place order.” 

Dean seems to notice Castiel’s unusual emotional state, the hose dropping to the floor as his delighted expression melts into a concerned frown. Unfortunately, the water continues to spray out the nozzle and the handle hit the floor at a 45 degree angle, so Castiel is soaked from belt to boots in an instant. 

A very wet, confusing instant.

Dean gasps, then giggles, then scrambles to get the hose turned off, which means he slips on the sudsy puddle on the floor near the faucet and it’s only by virtue of Castiel’s remaining grace that he’s able to move fast enough to get his shoulder under Dean’s back as he goes down. Castiel ends up sprawled on the wet concrete, a bit stunned, with a wet and mostly unclothed Dean on top of him. They both lay there for a second, and then Dean rolls to the side and levers himself into a squat, peering into Castiel’s face.

“Are you alright, man?” Dean says, eyes roving frantically around Castiel’s face in a familiar way. Castiel regards his friend calmly, noting the way his chest seems to expand in a way that has nothing to do with his lungs. Dean is haloed in radiance in a way that has nothing to do with a change in the ambient light source or with the bump to the back of his head that Castiel sustained in the fall.

Well, maybe it does have a little bit to do with that. “Ow,” Castiel says as he rubs the spot. Dean startles into action, first looking around the room as if assessing their situation, then looking down at himself and grimacing. 

“Okay, good buddy, I got ya. Don’t want to move you too far, just… hold tight…” he trails off as hops up and flings open Baby’s back door. He comes back and is clearly about to attempt what Castiel is given to understand is called a ‘bridal carry,’ but Castiel sits up gingerly and Dean backs up. 

“Alright, cool, let’s just-- you should probably lay down for a minute though, just--” Dean herds Castiel to the back seat, pressing gently on his upper arm as he leans back and then lifting his legs onto the seat. 

“I’m really not--” Castiel begins, but Dean shushes him. 

“Head injury,” he says, in a tone that brooks no argument. 

“But-”

“Nope. I’m getting some ice. Be right back.”

Dean is gone for longer than Castiel would have thought necessary, giving him time to contemplate the recent scene. 

Giving him time, in other words, to review the list of accumulated “reactions” and parse their meaning. It really all boils down to one thing. One many-splendored thing, that can no longer be sequestered away for later. 

Baby’s other rear door opens, the one that Castiel’s head abuts. 

“Lift your head,” Dean murmurs, almost in Castiel’s ear as he renders his own instruction moot by carefully sliding his fingers under and lifting up, so gently. Castiel’s gaze rakes over Dean’s neck and cheek, the sweat highlighting his hairline and the tiny fluff of suds caught near his temple. He smells of Pine Sol, musk and steel. 

An ice pack, the plastic frosty with condensation, now cradles his head and Dean withdraws after running his palm over Castiel’s forehead.

“Baby’s covered in soap so I gotta, you know.”  
  
“Rinse her,” Castiel finishes, nodding. His head really doesn’t hurt much at all but he lies there prone all the same. Dean moves away and closes the door gently.

Castiel hears the water spraying again, then both hears and feels it as it hits the windshield. The spray comes around to hit the driver’s seat window and Dean is dancing again, just a little shuffle of his feet, but somehow Castiel can feel every moment in his own body. 

He’s seen so many humans, miles of skin and muscle, seen demigods and sirens and incubi and none of them have caused this reaction. He’s put it down to losing his grace but Castiel knows it’s much, much more than that. With hardly a conscious thought, he sends a flicker of grace down where he put a failsafe on certain parts of his vessel’s anatomy. It’s not a vessel anymore, it’s his body, and as the grace undoes the failsafe, he feels the inappropriate reaction from before return tenfold, a hundredfold, sending rivers of sensation through his groin and chest, his lips buzzing like bees have landed on them. 

Dean points the spray to the back wall and gingerly closes the door at Castiel’s feet, giving a little wave as he does so, an almost coy look on his face as he registers Castiel’s gaze locked intensely onto his own. Once Baby’s interior (and current occupant) are safe, Dean turns the hose back onto the car, blasting the window, aiming the spray at Castiel’s face while holding the nozzle in a suggestive way. He mouths along to the words of the song, not one that Castiel recognizes, but he’s not posturing in a hard, masculine way, as he so often does. 

Dean’s shoulders are back, his hips loose, his face soft and his eyes heavy lidded. He’s prowling a bit, there’s a hint of humor in the way he moves, a little self-parody, but there’s sensuality too. Dean is teasing Castiel, it seems. The spray moves back and forth across the window, obscuring Dean’s form but not his face, which looks curious, intent.

Then he’s gone again, and the water hits the back window, spattering loudly over the trunk and the rear bumper. Castiel closes his eyes and lets the feeling sink into him. He’s aroused by Dean, by the sight of those shorts hugging his hips, his cheeks, by the way they cling and the way they obviously make Dean feel. Sexy.

Silence reigns as the spray ceases for a moment, then Dean is back in front of the window before Castiel, opening up the door and leaning forward, drops of water trailing down his bare chest. He’s about to say something when his gaze slides lower, to where Castiel is no longer hiding his reaction. 

Castiel raises himself up on his elbows, shifting his legs wider under the sudden scrutiny.

Dean licks his lips and his eyes meet Castiel’s. “You, uh, you enjoying the show?” 

In lieu of a verbal response, Castiel sets his weight more firmly on his left elbow while his right hand reaches down to graze the length of himself, his wet trousers leaving nothing to the imagination. Dean stills and quiets, eyelids fluttering for a moment while he takes it in. 

“Yes,” Castiel finally answers, and Dean nods, a little jerky thing, then his eyes meet Castiel’s. The gaze lingers, understanding passing between them as it has often done in the past. But this time it’s no monster they’re silently planning to ambush, no ghost to trick or deflect. Only the agreement that this is happening, this is right, they are on the same page. The same team.

“They’re kinda cute, huh?” Dean says in a low voice, one hand sliding down his hip, touching the wet fabric. 

“Do you like your present, Dean?” Castiel asks, and he didn’t realize his voice could get that low. 

Now it’s Dean turn to dispense with words. He doesn’t even nod, he just pushes Castiel’s right leg off the seat and replaces it with his knee, climbing in and leaning in and touching Castiel all along his body. Castiel gasps as Dean presses down, heart to heart, hips to hips, matching hardness to hardness and softness to softness.

“This for me?” he asks, punctuating it with a slight roll of his hips. Castiel’s lips part on a groan that turns into a long sigh. He nods, watching Dean’s face light up. 

“Just what I always wanted,” Dean says, then his mouth covers Castiel’s. 

  
  



End file.
